Social stress

[ailbhe]

So my NCT social event is over, and two women came, one with an external baby and one with an internal baby. They were lovely, if a bit more interested in adult-led weaning than I am, and stayed for about an hour, and it was fine. Now I'm feeling angry and stressed.

I'm annoyed, as far as I can tell, because I find it very hard to clamp down on my strong feelings about various things baby-related, but I do, and other people seem to me to be less reluctant to speak out to strangers on these matters. (Online journals don't count as talking to strangers; if you don't like what I say you can click away). I tried to be as moderate as possible on the topic of eco-disposables and cloth nappies, and on breastfeeding (I really, really stayed very quiet about breastfeeding, and didn't even mention that I'm still feeding Linnea, which felt very like not being Out), and I didn't even enthuse too much about sling use, though I did tell the pregnant woman that feeding a baby in a sling was a valuable skill and she's welcome to come and practice with my slings once her baby's external, before she buys one of her own.

They were nice, but I feel self-repressed, and that leaves me feeling a bit bitter. Ho hum.

Comments

[batswing.livejournal.com]

There MUST be other mothers with your views near you! What a shame.

[ailbhe]

For all I know these women *do* share the majority of my views, but not the early weaning one. It's just that neither of them felt in the least awkward discussing ways to make their child accept that it was time to stop breastfeeding now, and I *did* feel awkward - enough that I didn't say it - saying "actually we don't do adult-led weaning, Linnea's going to do it herself one day."

My views are a bit extreme, really. Recycling, organic food, ethical consumerism, child-led weaning and education, blah blah blah. I'm just a big soppy hippie.

[batswing.livejournal.com]

Hippie is good. More people should have your views and ethics. I wish I could be sure I'd have the stamina to keep it up with kids. I find it hard to keep up the level of ethical living we achieve at the moment. I imagine it's much more expensive and time consuming with wee ones.

[ailbhe]

For me, it's MORE important now I have kids, because I need to lead by example. I also don't cross the road when the red man is showing, these days.

[batswing.livejournal.com]

lol
An example to us all! (I nearly get run over on a regular basis according to my beloved, who is also very good about the green man!)

[clare-s.livejournal.com]

You know you are a parent when you do this ! You also know when you tell your visitors off for doing things you don't want the kiddies to emmulate

[rmc28]

I'm glad you're a big soppy hippie and that you're happy to talk about what you do online. From a purely selfish point of view, it helps me think a lot about what we do and what I'm prepared to change - the most recent and obvious one is deciding to get a dishwasher, after measuring how much water I use doing the washing by hand.

I was talking about using cloth nappies yesterday and someone said rather dismissively something along the lines of "oh you're such a hippy with the reusable nappies and wanting to breastfeed". I pointed out that both breastfeeding and real nappies can be easily justified on cost grounds alone, which seemed to disconcert them a little. Obviously the hormones are supposed to make me lose all ability to think quantitatively ...

[ailbhe]

Awww :) I'm glad it's useful.

I've been thinking about how I do all this thinking about all the things I do, and basically it boils down to geekness. I used to be a mutt geek, then I was a CSS geek, then I was a weddings geek, and now I'm a parenting geek. I wonder sometimes what would happen if I allowed myself a total lack of restraint about the whole thing. Not likely while I'm this hot and pregnant though.

[piqueen.livejournal.com]

What would a total lack of restraint with respect to parenting look like? *boogles*

[ailbhe]

I'd go on about it a lot more, in a lot more depth, a lot more often, for a lot longer :)

[piqueen.livejournal.com]

Ah okay that makes sense. I was picturing twins followed by triplets 12 months later or similar.

[ailbhe]

Unfortunately, my restraint or lack thereof doesn't make me able to choose to have twins etc :( But I'll keep on trying!

[k425.livejournal.com]

Come to Wet Yorks, you'd fit right in!